Volume 11: Memetic Crisis Chapter 566: Sage Time
"Great...cause? You are not from the Ark! Who are you?" Dr. Renee asked alertly.
"Don't you already know the answer in your heart?" The other party stretched out his hand and pinched Dr. Renee's jaw with the index finger and thumb of his right hand. His hand was so strong that Dr. Renee once doubted whether her jawbone would be crushed by the other party.
Yes, I have indeed guessed the answer... Leni thought to herself.
On this planet, apart from the Ark, is there any other human force that can accept such a former senior researcher who has committed a serious crime?
Or to simplify the problem further - in the wilderness, which human force is qualified to challenge the Ark?
A group of scattered exiles is obviously not the right answer to this question, so the only option left is the last one.
Heretical sect.
"Are you... a prophet?" Dr. Renee asked with some difficulty.
Because her chin was still held in the other person's hand, her voice seemed a little unclear.
"I guess so." The two fingers that were pinching Dr. Renee's chin moved up slightly and got stuck on both sides of her cheeks. With a slight force, they forced Dr. Renee to open her mouth into an "O" shape.
"The so-called 'prophet'... is just a nickname." The other party's tone was like a sigh, and it was also like a mockery. He slowly shook his head, "I am just His agent in this world, an extension of His will. It is also because of His guidance that I was able to find you before those ignorant people."
The "Prophet" began to pinch Dr. Renee's cheeks with his middle finger and thumb, and his index finger reached into Dr. Renee's mouth, which was forced to open. Dr. Renee only heard a "sizzling" sound, and it seemed that something tore open the leather gloves on the other's hands and drilled out from the tip of the index finger.
The next second, Dr. Renee felt something slippery and wriggling sliding down her throat.
After doing all this, the "prophet" finally let go of his hand and stood up.
He took a few steps back and looked at Dr. Renee, who was lying on the ground, with interest.
"Ahem... what did you feed me... ahem... what did you feed me?" Dr. Renee clamped her hands over her throat, trying to choke out the thing, but it was no use - the thing was alive, slender, and covered with a layer of sticky secretions, just like a slippery loach. Dr. Renee was almost strangling herself to death, but it still passed through her throat and fell into her stomach.
Thinking of the touch in her throat, Dr. Renee couldn't help but think of a special creature created by the Alpha civilization, and her face suddenly turned pale.
"Could it be... a flesh-eating worm?"
If the "container" where the eroded species is parasitic still has a glimmer of hope, then the host of the flesh-eating worm basically has only one ending: being used as nutrients by the larvae and eaten clean bit by bit from the inside out.
Even in the most well-equipped laboratory in the research institute, no parasite can survive... The flesh-eating worm's ability to sense danger is far more sensitive than that of the seed of erosion. It can even sense the fear and despair produced in the host's brain. As long as the situation is slightly wrong, it will immediately enter the "ripening period", sucking the host's flesh and blood dry in a very short time and breaking out of the body.
Within the heretical sect, being implanted with larvae of "flesh-eating worms" is a very severe punishment. Although the prophet will promise these "sinners" that if they can perform enough merits, he will send messengers to remove the flesh-eating worms from their bodies and relieve their suffering - in fact, this sentence is very misleading. The flesh-eating worms that have completed the parasitism cannot be removed. The prophet's messenger will only calculate the time for the larvae to mature and take away the adult worms that have broken out of the body.
As for the host's life or death, it has nothing to do with them.
Of course, literally speaking, the prophet did not lie to these people - the flesh-eating worms in their bodies were indeed removed, and they would no longer suffer the pain of being bitten by the worms... As a dead person, they would never feel any pain again.
Although Dr. Renee had never seen with her own eyes what those tortured heretics looked like before their death...but she had seen too many miserable conditions of those who were used as "feed" in the "artificial breeding base for flesh-eating worms" inside the institute.
Some things give people completely different feelings when they happen to others and when they happen to oneself...Dr. Renee couldn't help but recall those scenes and imagine what it would feel like if the pain those people endured was transferred to herself.
Her breathing suddenly became rapid. She didn't know if it was a psychological effect or for some other reason, but she felt a sharp pain in her lower abdomen and her limbs began to tremble uncontrollably.
"Flesh-eating worms? Tsk, tsk, tsk..." The prophet shook his head again, "This is a gift from the great gods. How can you compare it with the defective products made by blasphemers like flesh-eating worms?"
"The great god's...gift?" The heavy pain in her abdomen had turned into unbearable cramps. Fine beads of sweat oozed out of Dr. Renee's face. She wanted to reach into the pocket inside her white coat - in the pocket, there were some emergency medicines that she carried with her, including painkillers, which were very common injections on the battlefield... She felt that if she didn't give herself an injection, she might really die from the pain.
However, Dr. Renee soon discovered that she had lost control of her body. The blood vessels under the skin of her limbs were all bulging, and she looked like a large purple earthworm crawling on her body. Blood that was so dark that it was almost black slowly flowed out of her nostrils and ears.
The prophet of the heretical sect seemed to be leaning over and saying something to her, but she felt that the other party's voice seemed to come from a very far away place. She could only hear some vague and ambiguous syllables, and as for the specific content of the words, she could not make out anything at all.
"Am I... am I going to die?" Dr. Renee thought somewhat desperately.
For some reason, at this critical moment, she was regretting why Ke Lan had not accepted her proposal before...
If I were pregnant with that man's child, then Professor Smith's research data wouldn't be so important... I wouldn't be in a hurry to rush back to the Ark, and I wouldn't have a conflict with the Marines of Fleet Zero...
"Am I really going to die..." She felt her consciousness gradually dissipating, and she could no longer feel her body. However, it was precisely because of this state that the pain that was enough to make her collapse disappeared along with the disappearance of her physical senses.
"No, you won't die." The originally vague voice suddenly became solid, and the prophet's voice sounded directly in her mind - for a moment, Renee seemed to feel that her thoughts were connected with the other party.
"Not only will you not die, but you will also transcend the shackles of the human body and gain power from Him." The prophet's lips moved, but the voice was transmitted directly to the mind of the semi-comatose Renee - if Renee could still concentrate at this time, she would be surprised to find that the language used by the other party was the language of the Alpha civilization that they had never been able to decipher!
And she seemed to have mastered the ability to understand this language in an instant...
…
…
At the same time, thousands of kilometers away, Ke Lan, who was still on Dr. Renee's mind before she lost consciousness, had just finished an unknown number of rounds of battle.
Zofia Soma's private residence, master bedroom.
Ke Lan sat on the bed with her upper body naked, her back leaning against a thick pillow filled with real goose down, her eyes staring somewhat dully at the oil painting hanging on the opposite wall.
The name of this oil painting is "Lady Godiva on Horseback". It shows a beautiful naked woman riding on a white horse. However, the street is empty and all the houses have their doors and windows closed. The golden sunlight shines on the woman's white shoulders, as if the entire picture is coated with a layer of holy light.
This is certainly not an authentic work from the old era, but an extremely exquisite imitation. The original oil painting was once collected in the Coventry Museum in Great Britain, but unfortunately , the museum and its collections were accidentally destroyed in a fire caused by a riot. Otherwise, with the cultural and artistic value of this painting, it should have a place in the Ark's art collection warehouse.
Although it is a replica, with current technology, this oil painting can be so realistic that even the isotope detection method cannot distinguish the authenticity of this painting... Of course, for a work whose original no longer exists, this step seems a bit redundant.
"Lady Godiva on Horseback" tells a story full of brilliant humanity: In order to raise military funds, a British earl decided to impose heavy taxes on the people in his territory, but the earl's wife, Lady Godiva, the protagonist of this oil painting, pleaded with the earl, hoping to reduce the taxes on the people.
But this action angered the count, and the two made a seemingly absurd bet: the count proposed that as long as Lady Godiva rode naked through the city streets and all the residents in the city did not peek at her, he would agree to his wife's request.
The result... was naturally just as depicted in the oil painting. When the naked Lady Godiva rode onto the street the next day, all the people in the city spontaneously stayed at home with their doors and windows closed. The entire street was empty except for the Countess.
Afterwards, the count kept his promise and reduced taxes for the people.
This story is indeed beautiful, but in Ke Lan's opinion, it is more like a legend used to glorify the nobility.
The story takes place in the Middle Ages, which was undoubtedly a very dark era in Western human history. In that era, the lives of the lower-class people were even more worthless than in the era of interstellar drifting... Such a thing would be impossible to happen now. In that dark era, it was more like a wishful expectation of people for the quality of kindness.
Whether human nature is good or evil has always been a controversial topic, and there is still no accurate answer...
"Why would I think about this?" Ke Lan, who was staring at the painting, suddenly shuddered and let out a long sigh, "Could this be the legendary... 'Sage Time'?"
Ke Lan turned her head and looked at the other side of the bed - a graceful human figure was rising under the soft silk quilt. Ke Lan knew that as long as she lifted the quilt, the breathtaking beauty would appear before her eyes.
But there was a voice in his head telling him that if he lifted the quilt at this moment, it would attract an unimaginable terrifying force.
The horror of this power cannot be described in words. Even the "great god" who can interfere with countless dimensions is nothing more than an ant in front of this power.
As long as that power comes, the whole world will collapse in an instant, without even a trace of residue left.
Ke Lan rubbed her face hard, but ultimately failed to wake up the young lady who had fallen into a deep sleep. She got out of bed alone, picked up the clothes scattered on the floor and put them on.
He walked to the table. The smart kettle on the table kept a constant temperature. The sci-fi blue light on the handle of the kettle flashed like breathing.
Ke Lan poured herself a glass of water and drank it all.
The restlessness in his heart had long since calmed down. He leaned against the wall covered with flocked wallpaper and began to think about what to do next.
This trip back to the Ark was originally intended to deal with a "BUG" in the full immersion system, but he himself did not expect that after landing, before he could even sit down, he would be immediately involved in another more serious accident.
Compared with the "meme crisis", the presence of the "BUG incident" has become so weak that it is dispensable - the secrets and resources that the undead crew possesses once again exceeded the limits of Ke Lan's expectations. He is almost certain that even if he chooses to report the "BUG incident" as it is, it will not cause any waves.
The existence of "Zero" might still attract the attention of the Undead Crew, but as for Ke Lan himself...
He always had the feeling that he had been completely seen through by the undead crew.
Just like when she first met the "Pope" Chiron in the South 16th District, in front of the other party's special abilities, Ke Lan's thoughts and memories were almost completely transparent - but even so, Chiron did not show too much surprise.
This might be because Chiron was tired of eternal life and had lost interest in everything about time, but Ke Lan couldn't rule out the possibility that Chiron already knew everything, so he seemed so calm when he saw his "secrets".
Ke Lan really wanted to know what had happened to her... and how all this had to do with the Undead Crew.
However, whenever he asked about these things, any member of the crew, including Chiron, had an attitude of "can't say" - could it be that only after he officially joined the Undead Crew would he have the opportunity to learn the truth of the matter?
